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The lower the ping, the better: it is a delay measured in milliseconds, not a speed. With a VPN, values up to 100 ms are considered normal. At that level, websites, video, and calls work without noticeable pauses, while for fast-paced online games you want to stay within 50–60 ms. Ping cannot drop below the physical limit: to a server 2,000 km away, the signal takes at least 20 ms for the round trip, and no service can change that. Let's look at where the number in the server list comes from, which values suit which tasks, and what to do if your ping is high.
Ping is the time it takes a data packet to reach a server and come back. It is measured in milliseconds (ms). Lower is better: 20 ms means the reply arrives in two hundredths of a second, 300 ms means almost a third of a second.
Ping is often confused with speed, but they are different properties of a connection. Speed in megabits shows how much data passes per second; ping shows how quickly the response to each action arrives. A 300 Mbps link with a ping of 250 ms downloads files beautifully and is a poor fit for a shooter. A 20 Mbps link with a ping of 30 ms is the opposite.
There is also a third characteristic that rarely gets mentioned: jitter, which is the variation in delay. A steady 60 ms feels better than values that jump between 25 and 150 ms.
For everyday tasks, a ping of up to 100 ms is normal; for calls, up to 150 ms; for fast online games, up to 50–60 ms. These are practical guidelines: there is no hard standard for "normal VPN ping."
| Ping | How it feels | What it suits |
|---|---|---|
| up to 50 ms | Delay is unnoticeable | Everything, including shooters and competitive games |
| 50–100 ms | Noticeable only in fast games | Websites, video, calls, most games |
| 100–150 ms | A slight pause in calls and games | Websites, video, messengers, turn-based games |
| 150–250 ms | People talk over each other, games stutter | Websites and video |
| over 250 ms | Pages open with a noticeable delay | Only file downloads and buffered video |
The 150 ms threshold is not arbitrary: Recommendation ITU-T G.114 from the International Telecommunication Union calls a one-way delay of up to 150 ms acceptable for most voice applications. For buffered video, ping barely matters: the clip starts a fraction of a second later and then plays smoothly.
The number next to a server in the app is the delay from your device to the VPN server, not to a website or a game. The real delay is made up of two legs: from you to the VPN server and from there to the resource you need.
This leads to a common mistake. A server shows 25 ms, you connect, and the game shows 140 ms. There is no contradiction: it really is 25 ms to the VPN server, but the game server is far from it, and the second leg adds the rest.
So choosing a server by the number in the list alone makes sense only when the resource is located near that server. For games and calls the rule is different: the VPN server should sit on the path between you and the resource, not off to the side.
A VPN adds an intermediate point to the route, so in the usual case the delay grows by 5–30 ms. The size of the increase depends on three things: the distance to the server, its load, and the protocol.
Distance is the main factor, and settings cannot change it. Light in optical fiber travels at roughly 200,000 km/s, which means every 100 km of path costs about 1 ms for the round trip. Real ping is one and a half to two times higher than the calculated figure: cable does not run in a straight line, and every router adds its own delay.
| Server relative to Moscow | Straight-line distance | Theoretical minimum | Realistic expectation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Helsinki | about 900 km | 9 ms | 15–25 ms |
| Istanbul | about 1,750 km | 18 ms | 30–45 ms |
| Frankfurt | about 2,000 km | 20 ms | 35–50 ms |
| Amsterdam | about 2,150 km | 22 ms | 35–55 ms |
| New York | about 7,500 km | 75 ms | 115–150 ms |
| Singapore | about 8,400 km | 84 ms | 130–180 ms |
The theoretical minimum is calculated from distance and the speed of light in fiber; the "realistic" column is the same calculation with a factor of 1.5–2, not a measurement. Your numbers depend on your carrier and city: from Novosibirsk, Europe is 25–30 ms farther than from Moscow.
The table shows why servers in Finland, Germany, and the Netherlands give comparable delay, while the US and Asia give several times more. How to choose a country for a specific task is covered in the article which country to choose in a VPN.
Sometimes, but it is the exception. Ping through a VPN drops only when the route through the VPN server turns out to be shorter or less congested than the one your carrier uses to send traffic directly.
This happens if the provider sends traffic to the game server by a roundabout path, or if its backbone is overloaded at peak hours. In other cases the promise that "a VPN lowers ping" does not hold: an extra hop adds delay. A detailed breakdown with a step-by-step check is in the article VPN for gaming.
Compare two measurements to the same resource: first without the VPN, then with it. The difference shows how much the tunnel itself adds.
ping address command in a terminal or command prompt.Services like Speedtest show the ping to their nearest node. With a VPN on, that node is chosen near the VPN server, so the number comes out small and says little about the delay to the resource you actually need.
First, switch to a server that is geographically closer. That has the biggest effect. The other steps help less, but they work too.
If the problem is not delay but a drop in download speed, the causes are different. They are described in the article why a VPN slows down your speed.
In BessyConnect you can pick a server manually by country or let the app choose. The service runs on the VLESS + Reality protocol; as with any VPN, most of the delay here is determined by the distance to the server.
For tasks where ping matters, we recommend starting with the locations closest to Russia: Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, and Poland. The apps:
Low. Ping is a delay: the fewer milliseconds, the faster the server's reply arrives.
For websites, video, and calls, yes. For shooters and other fast games, 100 ms is already noticeable; there you want 50–60 ms or lower.
The app shows the delay only to the VPN server. The path from the VPN server to the game server is added on top, and if the game server is far away, the total ends up large.
The geographically closest one: from the European part of Russia, that is Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, or Poland. For games, it matters more that the VPN server is near the game server.
Yes, if your carrier routes traffic along a suboptimal path and the path through the VPN server is shorter. Normally, though, a VPN adds 5–30 ms.
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